


Rebirth

by ellerean



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellerean/pseuds/ellerean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Branded live a hundred lives, but only the first is seared into the heart to remain through all the rest.</p><p>Or, what to do without him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosage/gifts).



> I _tried_ to resist this prompt, because it’s similar to the first fic I'd ever written. (In that one, Soren ventures to Grann instead.) But then I thought it would be fun to revisit it, and appropriate for this same theme to present itself in my “return” to Fire Emblem. Shut up, quasi; just get to the fic already. Fine.
> 
> MERRY CHRISTMAS, EM ♥

After the blistering heat of the Desert of Death, Soren almost _likes_ Daein winter. It doesn’t seem possible that only the day prior his feet had been scorched, and today he’s wishing he’d brought more layers of clothing. But it’s fitting, walking into the snowstorm that welcomes him to his birth country. But Tellius, never mind Daein, doesn’t feel like home. It never did. But even if he were to cross through Crimea, where his life had truly begun, it wouldn’t be the Crimea he’d known. He briefly considers traveling west, just to see if the old keep is there, and then curses his sentimentality. Of _course_ it’s not there. Or someone else has taken it over, descendants of the people they’d once known—surely no one he’d care to introduce himself to.

Hatari wasn’t the only land beyond the desert, but he’d known that much before they’d even crossed it. There was an entire world waiting for them, nations with lavish cultures and exotic foods he’d been pressured into eating—some of which he’d enjoyed. But he had been more interested watching the people. There were no beorc or laguz nations; they were simply nations, divided by politics rather than species. They hadn’t a clue that a land existed beyond the desert—never mind the turmoil it had encountered. And it had remained that way.

Soren had feared this, when he’d decided to return—the memories. The reminiscing. Crossing the border and being slammed with everything he’d been trying to ignore.

But even that’s a lie—because if he truly wanted to forget, he wouldn’t have returned to Tellius at all.

He pulls the red cloak tighter around his shoulders. His feet had ached trudging across the desert, but now they’re so cold he can no longer feel the pain. But he keeps walking, partially because he doesn’t want to stop but also because there’s nowhere decent to camp in the middle of a snowstorm.

“’Scuse me!”

He lifts his head. He’d heard the flap of the wyvern’s wings, but hadn’t expected its destination to have anything to do with him. The rider looks familiar with her short red hair, the mischievous spark in her eye. But the person she resembles would be old now, or dead.

“You need a ride?” she calls down.

He _could_ accept, but Soren shakes his head. The wyvern still hovers, as if waiting for a real answer.

“I’m fine.” His reply is clipped and he belatedly adds, “Thank you.” He’d learned something of manners over the years, albeit unwillingly.

She shrugs. It’s no skin off her back. “Suit yourself!” But rather than take off, she rummages through a satchel at her hip. She tosses down a small brown sack, which lands in the snow too far away for Soren to have caught it. “Keep warm!”

He waits until she’s taken to the sky, the giant beast an indistinct speck on the gray horizon. He slowly advances to the package, like it will attack, but it warms him when he cups it in his hands. Bread, he can tell, before he unties the string. Miraculously still warm. _Could be poisoned_ , he thinks, even as he swallows the first buttery bite. It’s the first thing he’s eaten in two days.

He’d have been better off without the bread, he decides, as he drops the empty sack. Because now his body _knows_ it’s hungry, and it’s grumbling even as it digests the hearty bread. At least he’s no longer as cold. He doesn’t think he’d walked that far, or that long, but the air smells of spring despite the layered snow on the ground. Still, he remains huddled in his cloak. It drags behind him, but that’s not the reason the ends are ragged. Its condition has nothing to do with him and more to do with its previous owner, who’d used it as a cape to a blanket and everything in between.

If Soren breathes in deep enough, it still smells like him, too. Unfortunately, breathing is a requirement if he wants to keep on going, so he’s consistently assaulted with the memories.

He _does_ have to cross through the southern part of Crimea, unless he wants to take a detour into Begnion. He is mildly curious if that country has changed at all, but not enough to take a days-long detour.

There’s virtually no security at the Crimea border. Some guards ask after the purpose of his visit, and he claims to just be passing through. “Destination?” a man asks, clearly bored, and it’s the first time Soren has said the word aloud in decades.

“Goldoa.”

The guard may be bored, but he’s not stupid. It takes only one quick glance to fit the pieces together. _Branded_ , Soren thinks, his forehead burning. He recalls sleeping at this same border a lifetime ago, after being kicked and spit upon. A crime against the goddess. Parentless. Scum of the earth.

But the guard nods and steps aside, allowing him passage.

Perhaps things _have_ changed. He’s hesitant to take the credit, but only because _he_ wasn’t the Hero of the Blue Flames—or whatever nonsense nickname they’ve come up with.

Soren nods to the guards, who only look at him in wonder as he passes into Crimea. If they suspect who he is, they say nothing.

Few things surprise Soren anymore. But the moment he steps onto Crimean soil, he stops in his tracks. He hadn’t told anyone he was coming. He’d debated not showing up at all, just wandering aimlessly for the rest of his absurdly long life.

But there at the gate is a familiar face. The man brushes off the seat of his pants, like he’d just risen from the ground. And then he smiles, and Soren doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Welcome home,” Kurth says.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t uncommon for beorc to ride on the shoulders of their elder relatives, laughing and spinning around in some sort of entertainment. Soren is not entertained, and he certainly does not laugh as he holds onto the back of Kurth’s—his uncle’s?—shifted form. He has questions, not that Kurth could’ve heard him as he flew. He’d provided Soren with some dried meat before the trip, so his stomach has stopped twisting into itself—at least, due to hunger.

From the sky, he can’t tell where Crimea ends and Goldoa begins. There’s a distinct border, of course, with standard-issue guards standing at a wall stretching around the whole of Goldoa. But beorc and laguz are on both sides of it. Soren closes his eyes, focusing on the wind in his face rather than the changed land below.

When they disembark at Goldoa Castle, there’s no grand welcome—and for that, he’s grateful. Kurth patiently waits for him to climb down before shifting back to his non-dragon form. It’s not until he smiles that Soren realizes he’s grown, albeit slightly. He has to incline his head slightly to meet his eyes.

“I told them fanfare was unnecessary,” Kurth explains, as he leads Soren through the winding halls of the palace. If he were to leave in the middle of the night, Soren isn’t sure he could find the front gates again. “But they’re most certainly curious.”

“How did you know?” It’s the first thing Soren has said to him, not even a hello when they’d encountered at the border.

Kurth turns into what can only be a guestroom, which is gaudily decorated in black and gold. The tall doors have been opened to air it out, which only partially masks the stale smell of disuse. Somehow, Soren knows this room has been waiting for him—and he wonders for how long it’s been vacant.

Kurth doesn’t answer until he closes the door. “We can sense our own kind,” he replies. “The rules have changed, Soren. Many things have changed since the war.”

He speaks of the war’s end like it’s a new development, like decades haven’t passed. Soren doesn’t want to take off his cape, but feels ridiculous wearing the oversized piece of dingy fabric indoors. He folds it neatly on a dresser.

Kurth hasn’t changed, but that had been the appeal. It’s possible that some of the beorc they’d fought with still lived, reminiscing about the days of the war under the great Hero of Tellius. His uncle—Soren still hasn’t gotten used to the concept of biological family—smiles. It’s same smile he always had, which had been unnerving in a land swarming with blood and soldiers. It bothers him less now. Soren wonders if he’s gone soft in what might be considered old age.

“Just ask,” Soren says, turning toward the window. He hates how venomous it sounds, but the questions are inevitable. The window stretches from floor to ceiling and looks out to a courtyard, which would be serene if not for the towering walls in the distance that serve as the castle’s borders.

“You don’t have to talk about it.” Kurth sits on an overstuffed armchair. “Soren…” He pauses, and when Soren looks over his shoulder he’s surprised that he’d looked away. “This room has been yours for many years. We knew there was only one reason you would return, and there was no guarantee you would come here. But I’m glad you did.” When he smiles again, Soren looks back out the window before he can noticed he’d been watching. “Are you hungry?”

It’s more of a command than a question, because in moments something akin to a feast is delivered to the room by a guard who keeps his eyes to the floor. They sit around a table that’s too small to hold the platters of roasted meat and vegetables. Soren grips the arms of his chair, his stomach grumbling so violently that it aches. Kurth waits for him to begin, and Soren doesn’t know where to start. His hand trembles as it reaches for his fork.

 

* * *

 

It’s been years since Soren has had trouble sleeping.

Castle Goldoa is too quiet. It blocks out the wind and the wildlife; he can’t even hear an owl or a bird as he stares up into the pitch-blackness of the ceiling. The blanket is too big and plush, the bed two wide for one. He imagines this is what a child must feel like in its parents’ bed.

“Are you still there?” he asks, but there’s no answer. Kurth had remained through dinner, and then had shown him where his new clothes were, and had even remained when he’d changed into clothes designated for sleeping. The silence is eerier than nights sleeping in the wilderness; his safety is discomforting.

Soren throws off the quilted blanket and pads barefoot across the floor, not bothering with his ridiculous, fluffy slippers. His eyes have adjusted to the dark well enough to see the outlines of furniture, though he knows by scent where the dresser is. He doesn’t need light to know exactly where he’d left the cape.

The door creaks open the moment he throws it around his shoulders and he freezes, as if caught in a criminal act. It’s Kurth, not that he’d expected anyone else, and he carries a single candle that provides just enough light to see his face.

“Is everything all right?” he asks.

“Are you going to do this… sensing… thing all the time?”

Kurth lowers his head. “My apologies. I can’t turn it off sometimes.”

He continues to stand in the doorway, as if requesting permission to enter, but Soren doesn’t reply. He moves to the window instead. Already he enjoys the view, even if it’s limited. The outdoors provides a comfort that he can’t feel trapped within these walls.

“It opens,” Kurth says, and Soren wonders how he never noticed the latch at waist-height. “It’s a private courtyard.” Soren flips the latch and glances over his shoulder, silently permitting his uncle to follow if he wants.

The night is cool, and he can breathe easier the moment he steps outside. Kurth has left the candle in the room, for the moon provides more than enough light to see. They sit on a stone bench and Soren pulls the cape tighter around his shoulders. When he looks up, he can’t see as many stars as he’s used to. “He died fifteen years ago,” he says without introduction.

There’s a pregnant pause before Kurth says anything, like he’s choosing his words carefully. “What have you done since then?”

“Traveled.” He picks at a loose thread on the cape. “There’s more than Tellius.”

Kurth nods. “I’ve heard.”

It’s the same sky, he realizes, even though that’s obvious. The same stars and the same moon they’d looked at together, the same sun rising to remind them of a new day.

Soren tries to convince himself that he doesn’t cry. He grits his teeth and turns away, cursing how bright the moon is in this courtyard. “Do you sense _that_?” he spits out, his voice cracking. When Kurth sets a hand on Soren’s shoulder, he doesn’t shake it off. He doesn’t want to admit how long it’s been since he’s felt that kind of warmth, a soothing hand and a gentle squeeze. It makes the tears fall faster, his throat raw with the attempt to stop them. He swipes at the corner of his eye like it’s an itch, or an allergic reaction to the flowers growing around the bench, but when Kurth wraps both arms around him it’s fruitless to deny it.

At least it’s easier when there’s a shoulder to cry onto, a place to hide his face that will soak in the tears so he doesn’t have to feel them on his cheeks. When the cape drops off one shoulder Kurth sets it back into place, which only makes him feel more helpless. Soren clings to the cape protectively, holding it so tight around his neck that it’s difficult to breathe—or that could be the blasted tears, which won’t be stopping anytime soon.

“Where do I go?” Soren whispers, hoping his pleading is muffled by Kurth’s shoulder. “What am I supposed to do?”

Kurth massages the crown of his head. It’s such a slow, light movement that he hardly feels it at all, just feels the aftermath of a soothing touch as it spreads into his limbs. If he’d heard, then at least Kurth has the decency not to reply. Soren can do whatever he wants—he’s not tied down to anything—and somehow, that makes it worse.

“You should get some sleep,” Kurth eventually replies, like that is the answer to everything.

It _is_ the answer, at the moment. Soren doesn’t even mind that Kurth waits until he’s back in bed, and doesn’t say anything when he refuses to pick the blanket off the floor. The mattress may be too soft and there may be an unnatural number of pillows, but it’s fine now that’s wrapped up in the cape. He almost laughs because the cape covers his feet—it could cover his whole body—and he recalls an image of Ike sleeping with his bare feet sticking out from the bottom.

 _Ike_.

“Do you need anything?” Kurth asks, as he stands at the door.

Soren balls the edge of the cape in a fist, then tucks it under his chin.

“I…” He looks away from the door, back out the towering windows. “I miss him.”

Kurth’s smile is illuminated by the slight flame of his candle. “You always will.” When Soren doesn’t reply, he adds, “You’ll never get over it, but you’ll learn to adjust.” The creak of the doorknob turning is audible in the too-quiet room. “You have family, Soren. You don’t have to be alone.”

“I know,” he quickly replies, before Kurth can leave. And then, as an afterthought, “Thank you.”

Kurth doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to. Soren can’t see him, but he can feel the gratitude that washes over the room, can sense the tears threatening to spill from his uncle’s eyes as he closes the door. Soren hasn’t left this room since his arrival, but he’s aware now of how close his family is. Kurth’s room is at the end of the hall, mere steps away, and Soren wonders how he hadn’t realized that before.

Sleep doesn’t necessarily come easy, but it’s better. And he thinks he slept through the night, if waking up without any recollection of the experience means anything at all.

When Kurth delivers his breakfast the next morning, he brings enough for two. They sit at the small table, and Soren teaches himself how to smear jam on a piece of toast using a real knife again. He can’t recall the last time he had wildberry jam, and it tastes better than he remembers. Sweeter. He never used to like sweets.

“Do you want to see?” Kurth asks, and Soren is glad for their strange sort of telepathy—he doesn’t have to ask what he’s talking about.

It’s still early when they head out. The air is brisk with early spring, so he rummages through his new wardrobe for something warm. There’s a fairly heavy cloak and fur-lined boots, which are off-season but sensible for the trip. Kurth is waiting in his courtyard, and he doesn’t shift into his full-sized dragon form until Soren gives him the okay.

He’s seen laguz shift so many times, and is vaguely aware of watching Kurth undergo the process the night before, but he’s still awed how it’s scientifically possibly to grow to such dimensions. It seems like he’ll continue growing to fill the courtyard, to break down the walls of Castle Goldoa and engulf Tellius like the Great Flood. But his expansion does stop, as Soren knew it would. Kurth stretches out his wings, much like beorc stretch their arms behind their back to loosen up, and then lies down flat for Soren to climb aboard. He doesn’t need Kurth’s command to hold on as they take to the skies.

They fly low, close enough to see activity on the land below but high enough not to disturb it. It looks like the same land from above, but the small changes are unnerving—the less-strict borders being the least of it. They fly over Gallia, where the laguz and beorc below wave at the Dragon King who sails above. Soren doesn’t return the wave, but Kurth roas in greeting. Villages he remembers being destroyed have been rebuilt. He stares at Castle Gallia in the distance, wondering how the new king is handling things—and then realizes he’s no longer new to the throne.

They take a sharp turn, heading east toward Crimea. He grips Kurth’s back tighter, the great dragon absorbing his fear and anxiety. Many of the old castles stills stand, but many have been rebuilt and modernized. Even the grass seems greener, the trees brighter as they soar overhead. He squints in the direction of the old keep, but Kurth has already turned away from it. It’s just as well.

The scales of Kurth’s back ripples as he slows. Soren thought they’d return to Goldoa—to home?—but he’s angled down to fly closer to the land. Soren sits up straighter and his eyes widen, taking in the vast expanse of lush greenery that is Serenes Forest.

The forest is _alive_ ; it’s like the trees themselves are singing, and the bird tribes are comingling in their greenery and on the ground. When he’d first stepped over the Tellius border, he’d have been glad to never see anyone he knew before. But now he’s searching for familiar faces, for soldiers from the war or former kings. The birds fly alongside them, cawing their greetings, and Soren lifts a hand to tentatively wave. Laughter rumbles through Kurth’s body.

There’s too much to see. Soren closes his eyes and allows Kurth to transport him, but it’s too soon before they land on solid ground. They hadn’t returned to Goldoa, landing instead right outside Serenes on the Begnion side. Kurth shifts back to a comically normal size, one not much taller than Soren. He’s still unused to looking up to him.

“Are you all right?” Kurth asks, even as he’s massaging his own shoulder.

“It’s so much,” he replies, trying to see through the dense trees of the forest.

“Soren.” Just the sound of his name is sweet, nothing like he’s used to. It’s not unpleasant. “I’m pleased you had the time away. You needed each other. But your life isn’t over yet.”

They’re close to the Begnion border, and he watches the patrol. They’re letting people through. That simple fact is fascinating in itself. “It’s not,” he replies. He reties the cloak, pulling it around him tighter. “There’s more.” He clears his throat and then adds, “Uncle.”

It’s Kurth’s turn to look away. Even though Soren can’t see his face, the warmth radiates from his heart and makes his own beat faster. He doesn’t have to ask before Kurth is shifting again, lying down for his nephew to climb aboard, then flying up and over Begnion. Soren raises a hand to the border patrol to wave, and they wave back.

**Author's Note:**

> (Found [here](http://soanvalcke.tumblr.com/post/105926965468) on tumblr.)


End file.
